Former Vancouverite surfs throughout pregnancy

Former Vancouver resident Kristi Olivares rode her surfboard during the entire nine months of her pregnancy and documented the experience in a YouTube video. (YouTube)

A former Vancouver resident who surfed an average of four days a week throughout the entire nine months of her pregnancy says she did it to share her love of the ocean with her unborn son.

Kristi Olivares, who now lives in Manly, Australia, described a typical day spent surfing on her website SheSurfs.com.

"I wait for a wave with my hand on my belly and know that my growing baby can feel the magic, too," she wrote when she was 30 weeks pregnant.

She documented her month-by-month experience riding the surfboard in a video she posted to YouTube (see below).

Olivares had been surfing the waters off Australia for four years when she found herself pregnant.

She says she never considered giving up the activity just because she was expecting. She said she just needed to adjust to her new centre of balance as her baby grew.

"I felt like I had to learn to catch waves all over again," Olivares told NBC's Today.com.

She made some other adjustments as well, such as surfing only in smaller waves and she knelt on her board instead of paddling out on her stomach.

Olivares said most people cheered her on during her surfing-while-pregnant days, but a few people did ask her about the danger. But she said her doctor, who is also a surfer, gave her the go-ahead, as long as she was careful.

Her baby, Alexander Bobby, was born on Sept. 10 last year, and according to Today.com, he has apparently been to the beach with his mom almost every day since he was five days old.